


Why Couldn't It Be Mini Golf?

by Vikujir (RaindropsOfBlack)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Father-Son Relationship, Fever, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hypothermia, Whump Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 21:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17149382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaindropsOfBlack/pseuds/Vikujir
Summary: Tony doesn't know why he agreed to hike up a mountain in 18 degree weather. Peter doesn't see the branch and that's the end of a really good hike.





	Why Couldn't It Be Mini Golf?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlecrazyfangirl_98](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecrazyfangirl_98/gifts).



> This fic was written with the prompt "surviving in a really cold place" for the 2018 Winter Whumperland Whump Exchange. This is the first fic I have ever posted and the first fic I've ever written for someone!

“Please, Mr. Stark!” Peter begged, unable to keep still, his eyes wide with excitement, breath puffing into a thick cloud around his face. “I promise I’ll be real fast. I’ll only take ten minutes.”

Tony shivered and craned his neck to look up at the ranger tower, its peak disappearing above the trees. The two hour climb up the mountain in 18 degree weather had been hard enough and now the kid wanted to climb even more? But, he was part spider after all. 

With a resigned sigh, Tony dragged off his backpack and plopped it down on the cement base of the tower. “Okay kid, I’ll give you eight minutes.” He grabbed Peter’s arm before he could take off and pulled him around to look him in the eye. “You be careful up there and don’t fall; your Aunt would skin me alive if you got hurt.” Peter’s laugh echoed across the mountains and Tony couldn’t help but smile. He knew he was just Peter’s mentor, but he had taken a liking to the boy.

With a sincere and quick nod, Peter dashed toward the wooden tower, not even bothering to aim for the stairs. With a quick flick of his wrist, he shot a perfectly aimed stream of webbing, catching the edge of the frame. Tugging slightly, he flew off his feet, soaring through the air to land gently on a large beam twenty feet in the air. How that kid never got tired would always be a mystery to Tony.

Dropping down onto his backpack, the tech genius settled in, ready to wait out the cold for the next eight minutes. Peter was a good kid and Tony trusted that he would keep his promise of only being eight minutes. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Peter swung onto the short wall of the covered platform at the top of the tower, landing lightly on his feet. The air up there was much colder and the small breeze that rustled through the treetops made his cheeks tingle.

An excited grin pulled at his lips as he bounced excitedly on his toes, perched precariously at the edge. From this vantage point, Peter could just see over the treetops to the vast expanse of white, broken here and there by patches of dark green. The sun reflected blindingly off the snow, causing it to sparkle in a way Peter had never seen before. 

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Peter pulled out his phone and brought up the camera app. “Tony’s gonna love these,” he exclaimed in delight, snapping a few pictures of the stunning landscape before him. 

After a few moments of staring in awe at the mountain side, Peter hopped down from the railing and took the stairs down a few levels, peering over the edge and off into the trees a few times. He knew he had a few more minutes and took that time to revel at the beauty of the winter forest around him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The air up in the mountains was cold but dry, keeping Tony from freezing solid as he waited for the teen. A thick blanket of loose snow about two feet deep covered the ground, not enough to get stuck in but just enough to make walking difficult. There was no breeze and the branches of the large pines around him bowed with the weight of the snow settled on them. 

Tony pulled in a deep breath, letting his eyes drift shut for a moment, taking in the sounds and smells of the winter wonderland around him. There was a small beep from his watch - signaling to him that Peter was now more than 100 feet away from him - and he opened his eyes, trying to peer through the trees to the top of the tower, but couldn’t see more than 80 or 90 feet up.

He glanced at his watch, noting that it had been six minutes since Peter had started his climb. The boy should be on his way back down now. Keeping his gaze turned upward, Tony waited, watching for any glimpse of the boy. There was a low creak, followed by a crack as a branch gave under the weight of show, showering Tony with a flurry of white from the tree above him, and he dusted himself off.

The seconds ticked away and soon it had been nine minutes and there was still no sign of the spider-boy. Climbing to his feet, Tony threw his backpack over his shoulder and pressed the small button on the side of his watch. “Karen, tell Peter his time is up. He should have been down here a minute ago.”

“Peter’s heart rate has slowed down significantly in the past two minutes and he is not responding to the light shock I sent to his wrist.” Tony’s heart began to pound and he moved toward the base of the tower, ready to climb up after the kid. “Give me his full stats for the last four minutes.”

Karen paused for a moment before relaying all of the information she found to Tony. “Sir, Peter is no longer conscious at this moment,” she added finally.

“Shit.” Tony charged up the stairs, taking them two at a time, trying to move as fast as he could up the tower. “Karen, what is the temperature right now?”

“The temperature of the air is 19 degrees, sir.” Her voice was too matter-of-fact, too perky for the situation. Tony made a mental note to program her with more empathy in response to certain situations.

The air grew colder the higher Tony went and he prayed that the kid hadn’t frozen up there. It took him a good six minutes to make it up, his breath huffing from his lungs as he took another flight of steps. He had been so focused on getting to the top that he hadn’t realized exactly how out of shape and out of breath he was. Tony made it halfway up the next flight of stairs when he caught sight of the soles of Peter’s shoes, almost tripping up the last few steps in his haste to get to the boy.

Peter lay on his back, his hood covering half of his face and his arms limp on the ground at his sides. Snow, bark, and leaves lay scattered around and on top of the boy, most of it clinging to his parka hood. Tony had no idea how Peter could have gotten so dirty with a roof over his head.

“Peter! Hey, kid,” Tony shed his backpack and dropped to his knees beside the unconscious boy, his shaking hands reaching out to touch Peter’s shoulder. “Karen, give me his stats again.”

“His body temperature is 95.3 - 1.5 degrees lower than it should be - and slowly decreasing. Heart rate is 52 and blood pressure 117/18 mmHg. He seems to be breathing okay, but it’s a bit slow.” 

Tony pulled off his gloves with his teeth and spit them to the side, setting his warm hands on Peter’s cold cheeks. “Hey, kid, please wake up. I need you to wake up now.”

After a few long moments, Peter stirred at the warmth on his face, his eyelids fluttering, and he swallowed hard before forcing them to open. As soon as they did, he jerked, trying to scramble into a sitting position. Tony’s firm hands on his shoulders stopped him and he dropped back to slump against the wall of the upper platform. 

“Mr. Stark?” His voice was weak and so pitiful and Tony’s heart clenched. 

“Yeah, kid, I’m here. I’m right here. What happened?”

Peter frowned and glanced around as if trying to remember. “I -- I stuck my head out over the edge to call down to you and something hit me in the back of the head and I blacked out, I guess…”

The sudden snow fall and the branch breaking earlier came to Tony’s mind and he grimaced, mentally kicking himself for not checking on the boy then. “Peter, are you hurt at all? Here, follow my finger.”

Peter followed Tony’s instructions perfectly, his eyes reacting equally to the change in shadows and the movement of Tony's finger. “Only my head and neck hurt, from where I got hit. Other than that…” He tested each of his limbs and prodded his torso, making sure he wasn’t injured anywhere that he couldn’t feel. “I don’t think I’m hurt anywhere else. I think I can get up.”

Tony wasn’t so sure, but the boy was already moving, pulling his legs underneath himself to climb to his feet. As soon as he was upright though, Peter listed to the right, almost falling over if Tony hadn’t been there. This was not good.

“Kid, sit back down, I think you may have gotten a concussion. Karen?”

The system built into Peter’s watch beeped once before the woman’s voice responded. “It does not look like Mr. Parker has suffered from a concussion. His brain activity shows normal.” Tony frowned. Something was definitely wrong. If it wasn’t a concussion, he had no idea what could be wrong.

“Karen, we need to get out of here and there is no way Peter can walk down these stairs even with my help. We are going to have to find another way down.”

“I seem to be having trouble…” A particularly bright flash of lightning struck dangerously close, raising the hairs on the back of Tony’s neck. Karen’s voice cut out suddenly and the small light on Peter’s watch blinked out. Tony grabbed up the boy’s limp wrist, fiddling with the watch before giving up with a growl of frustration. He glanced up at the sky, just now noticing the dark clouds rolling in.

He knew the only thing that could cause Karen to stop working like that was electromagnetic interference. And out here, the only thing that could cause that was a geomagnetic storm. The sudden electrical disturbance must have interfered with Karen’s connection, leaving the two avengers alone in the freezing cold with no way to contact their friends and with a geomagnetic storm building up. 

“I can’t believe I agreed to come out here in this weather, we should have just done mini golf or something…” Tony mumbled his annoyance to himself, but Peter’s head rose slowly, his eyes not quite focusing on his mentor’s face.

“‘M sorry, Mr. Stark… I thought it would be fun…” His brows pulled together and his lips began to quiver before he pulled in an abrupt breath and blinked hard, his previous expression vanishing in an instant. “How are we going to make it back down?”

Tony glanced down the long flights of stairs to the ground below and a grimace twisted his features. “That’s a pretty long way down and I don’t know if you will be able to make it all the way, but we have to try. It’s too cold up here and there is a storm coming in.” He grabbed one of Peter’s arms and turned his back on the boy, pulling him up into a piggyback carry. Unable to carry the boy and his pack on his back at the same time, he held the bag in one hand and started to make his way down.

With one hand supporting Peter and the other holding his bag, the trip down was more precarious than Tony thought it would be and much slower going. They had made it almost half way down and were coming to the end of the walled platforms when Peter’s breathing picked up and he shifted on Tony’s back.

“Mr. Stark.” Peter’s voice was weak and wavered a bit when he spoke, his teeth chattering despite his thick parka being zipped to his chin. “Mr. Stark, I think I’m going to be sick.” Tony quickly cleared the next landing and lowered the boy from his back, steadying him as Peter lurched for the edge and lost the contents of his stomach in painful heaves. Once he had finished, the boy collapsed into Tony’s arms, his entire body shaking with chills. “I don’t feel so good…” he whispered, eyelids drooping. 

Tony pulled him close, trying to transfer his body heat to the boy. “Hey, we’ll get out of here, I promise.” His discarded backpack lay close by and Tony dragged it over. “Peter, we might have to hang out here for a bit. The storm seems to be picking up and if we go any lower we won’t have any shelter from the wind.”

Peter didn’t respond, his focus only on staying warm and staying awake. They sat huddled quietly for warmth, and Tony could feel the cold weighing down on him, eyelids heavy with cold induced exhaustion. 

He must have dozed off for a moment because the next thing he knew, he was lurching awake, his breath coming fast and flashes of traumatic memories lingered loud in his mind. Peter was still leaning against him, slumped over in a fitful sleep and still shivering hard in his oversized parka.

The sky around them was dark and the wind howled through the trees, their limbs bending and creaking under the weight and pressure. Tony was thankful they had made it down the tower as far as they had because the trees provided them more cover than they would have been afforded at the top. 

Raising a hand, he pulled one glove off with his teeth and felt the boy’s forehead. The fire of a fever raging against the biting cold around them should have been there, but all he felt was a clammy sweat collecting in a light sheen across the boy’s forehead. Tony pulled Peter closer to himself, wrapping an arm tightly around the still shivering teen. His eyelids began to droop and he shook his head hard, determined to stay awake. 

Minutes past and the wind picked up, forcing Tony to duck his head away from the biting cold. His mind began to wander, memories being drugged up from years and years ago. Letting his eyes close, he focused on those moments, trying to bring into focus the few Christmas Eves he spent with his parents.

Minutes turned to hours and Tony began to shiver hard before he realized that the temperature had dropped well below 0 degrees. Lifting a shaking hand to Peter’s exposed cheek, he tried to feel for the boy’s warmth, but the numbing cold that laced across his hand prevented him from feeling anything. 

“We can’t last like this much longer,” he muttered out loud, slowly and achingly pushing himself away from the boy to pull his pack closer. With his hands shaking as badly as they were, it look him longer that he wanted to get the thick sleeping bag unhooked and rolled out on the cold floor of the platform. After forcing his fingers to cooperate and unzip the bag, he managed to pull Peter’s jacket and boots off and slide the boy into the thick cocoon. Tony wrapped the extra jacket around himself and hunkered down below the edge of the short platform wall, trying to preserve what heat he had left. 

As the night wore on, the temperature dropped further and soon Tony couldn’t feel his feet. Through frozen eyelashes, he watched the sleeping bag in front of him rise and fall slightly as the boy inside breathed, giving Tony immeasurable relief. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees and almost keeled over when his frozen limbs couldn’t hold his weight. There was no way he was going to last the night in this cold and that sleeping bag looked tantalizingly cozy.

Crawling forward slowly on numb hands and knees, Tony pulled off his boots, wincing as the movement jarred his frozen fingers and toes. He shed his jacket clumsily, tucking it tightly around his boots to keep them dry before painfully unzipping the sleeping bag. He could barely feel the heat coming off the boy inside and he knew that wasn’t a good thing. Peter had every sign of a fever except a spike in temperature. Sliding his cold legs into the bag, Tony managed to wiggle in beside the restless boy and zip up the bag, completely encasing them in the cocoon of warmth. 

Tony carefully turned the boy onto his side, pulling Peter in closer so they were face to face. He knew sharing body heat was the only way they were going to survive the night, especially when it seemed like Peter’s body wasn’t able to properly regulate his temperature.

After what felt like hours, Tony fell into a fitful sleep, one arm wrapped around Peter’s back and the other tucked under the boy’s head.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tony startled awake, his breath catching in his throat. Something wasn’t right. Spreading his fingers, he pressed his palm against Peter’s back, the cool temperature setting off alarm bells in his mind. The boy was sweating enough to dampen his shirt, but there was no heat radiating off his body and the skin on his neck felt clammy. 

“Damn it, Peter,” he muttered, scrambling to unzip and climb out of the sleeping bag. He had warmed up significantly from a few hours before and he quickly threw back on his coat and boots, sliding his gloves quickly back onto his hands. He had to get Peter help. He had no idea what was wrong with the boy, and with Karen unavailable and his phone signal down, he had no idea how to bring help. 

The sky above them was still dark even though morning was beginning to come and the storm still pushing through, though not as intense as it had been a few hours before. The wind was still bending the tree tops and Tony knew they were safer on the ground. 

He checked his phone and tried connecting with Karen a few more times before he angrily gave up, shoving the useless piece of hardware hard into his pocket with a curse. Peter was stirring in the sleeping bag and Tony quickly dragged the boy’s boots and jacket closer. “Hey, kid.” He reached out and rested the back of one degloved hand against Peter’s forehead, annoyed that his temperature hadn’t changed at all, but not surprised. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

Peter struggled to open bleary eyes, dull brown orbs trying to focus on Tony’s face. “Mr. Stark?” His words were still slurring and he seemed unable to focus on anything. “Are we saved?” Tony’s heart clenched and he let out a dejected sigh, helping Peter to sit up. 

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. We have to get down off this tower first. We can’t stay up here any more with this storm.” He slid the boots onto the boy’s socked feet and laced them tightly. Peter watched as Tony’s hands deftly tied the laces, then moved to grab his jacket and maneuver the boy’s arms into the sleeves. “You’re really cool, Mr. Stark,” Peter muttered, leaning toward Tony as he zipped up the jacket. “You’re really good at tying shoe laces…. I always end up making a big knot.” He giggled, and would have tipped over if it weren’t for Tony’s firm hands under his arms. 

“That actually surprises me a bit,” Tony replied, pulling the boy to his feet. Peter seemed to have better balance than he had the night before, but Tony couldn’t let himself get excited. The boy was clearly still delirious and still hadn’t regained all his balance. Gathering up all their belongings into the backpack, Tony grabbed Peter around the waist and the two of them began their slow trek down the rest of the tower. 

The going was painfully slow and the pair had to pause at every landing for Peter to catch his breath and regain his balance. Tony was breathing hard as well, but he tried to hide it from the boy. It was tiring carrying most of Peter’s weight and the packs while fighting the strong gusts of wind. 

As they finally reached the snow covered ground, Peter lifted his head, squinting off into the trees. “There is a little cave thing back the way we came,” he informed Tony, his voice sounding a bit stronger. “We might be able to stay there for a bit until you can call for help.”

Tony was surprised at how alert Peter was at the moment and at the fact that he HD remembered something so small from the day before. “Nice job, kid,” he praised, helping Peter in the direction he had indicated. Once they had reached the cover of the trees, the wind wasn’t quite as strong, but now Tony was fighting against the two plus feet of snow that covered the forest floor. 

The outcropping of rock Peter had noticed was not far into the woods and the two of them reached it in less than fifteen minutes. As soon as they moved beneath it, all wind ceased and the temperature leveled out. The cave was more of an outcropping that extended deep into the side of the mountain. It was large enough for both of them to stand under comfortably. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and shifted Peter in his grip. “Kid, you were right, we made it.”

Peter’s head lolled against his shoulder, his body hanging heavy in Tony’s arms. The man’s heart pounded hard against his chest, fear sending a chill down his spine. “Peter.” He tried to keep his voice steady and unfazed, but he knew that was impossible. Lowering Peter gently to the ground, Tony dropped all the bags and reached out to rest a shaking hand against Peter’s cool neck. 

The boy was completely unresponsive, his eyes closed, lips tinted blue, and his face pale. Tony’s hands quickly ripped open his jacket and pressed hard against Peter’s chest, a sob catching in his throat when he felt the steady thump of a heart beat and the slow, but definitely there, rise and fall of each breath. 

“What the heck happened to you?” he muttered, pulling the jacket back over the boy’s body. He could feel the cold slowly seeping through his own clothes and he shivered hard. He needed to find a way to warm Peter and himself up. Unrolling the sleeping bag, he spread it out close to the rock wall and unzipped it. The boy was still unconscious and bundled up in his jacket, but Tony knew that staying in damp clothes would only make someone colder, and that to preserve body heat the clothes needed to come off. 

Carefully maneuvering the boy around, Tony managed to strip him of his jacket, boots, outer shirt and thick pants. Without wasting time, he lifted the boy from the cold, hard ground and tucked him into the thick, goose-down sleeping bag and zipped it around him. 

After making sure the boy was completely bundled and protected, Tony spent the next 20 minutes gathering sticks for a fire, which was much harder than he thought it would be. Most of the sticks around him were either frozen solid or wet from the snow. He hunted along the edge of the rock until he managed to find a handful of relatively dry sticks and leaves, protected by the slight outcropping of rocks above them.

Quickly, Tony make his way back to Peter, checking on him before attempting to start a fire. Peter had been smart enough to pack a fire starting kit and Tony quickly retrieved that from the backpack. He had no idea how to use flint and steel to start a fire, but they were the only tools he had on hand and a fire was an absolute necessity. Pulling off his gloves with his teeth, Tony set up the sticks, accidentally knocking them down multiple times when his hands shook harder than he could control. 

With every second the air seemed to get colder and he more exhausted. A few attempts later, he had a fairly sturdy teepee of sticks and began trying to start the fire. He consistently had to pause every few minutes to breath into his rapidly freezing fingertips.

An agonizing five minutes passed before a spark finally jumped from from the flint and caught, disappearing for a moment before reappearing, eating hungrily at the dry parts of the twigs. Tony’s hoarse whoop of joy instantly put the fire out and his joyous cry turned to a frustrated shout that ended in a harsh cough. Once he had caught his breath back, Tony began the tedious process of starting the fire over again. Having figured it out with the previous attempt, it took him less time to get a spark to stay in his small teepee and soon, he had a small fire going.

He pulled Peter - still wrapped in the sleeping bag - closer to the fire and held out his own hands over the flames, warming up his frozen fingertips. Once he had enough feeling in his fingers and they had warmed up enough that bending them didn’t hurt, he scooted closer to Peter. Reaching out, he pushed back the hair from the boy’s forehead and pressed the back of his hand against his face. He was met with the heat of a raging fever and a sheen of sweat that startled him. 

When Tony had gone to get the wood for the fire, Peter’s skin had barely been warm and now he was burning up. The fire wasn’t large enough to have heated him as much as he was and Tony’s brain began to run through all the possible reasons for the sudden change in temperature, vaguely recalling Karen’s comment about his brain activity being ‘normal’. Maybe it was normal for anyone else, but for Peter it probably wasn’t normal.

Slowly, it began to dawn on him that the reason Peter might have been affected so much by the injury and the drastic change in temperature was the fact that the boy was part spider. Spiders don’t do well in extreme cold or extreme heat and with a concussion added to that, Peter’s body must have been struggling to deal with both the cold and the concussion at the same time. It caused his body to overload its immune system and prevented him from healing as quick as he should have. Now that his body was warming up, it seemed to have kick started his system again and his body was now over compensating for the previous lack of warmth with a fever. 

Tony quickly unzipped the sleeping bag, letting in a bit of cold air in an attempt to regulate Peter’s temperature. If he could do that, there was a good chance that Peter’s body would begin to heal itself on its own. He gently rested the back of his hand against the boys forehead, relieved when he could feel a change. Every few minutes, he would reach over and make sure the boy wasn’t getting to hot or too cold and eventually, he found a happy medium by pulling Peter farther from the fire and keeping a bit of the bag unzipped.

Exhaustion and the cold finally began to take their toll on the man and Tony struggled to keep his eyes open, his eyelids growing heavier every second. Soon, he couldn’t fight it any more and his conscious mind shut down, his body slumping over against the rock wall beside him.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As awareness began to creep back into Peter’s body, the boy abruptly became aware of the icy cold of the air around him. A shiver snaked its way down his spine and his eyes snapped open, blinking a few times as he tried to bring the grayness above him into focus. The silence around him was broken only by the occasional crashing of branches reaching their weight limit and dumping large amounts of snow through the air. 

For a moment, Peter just laid there, still wrapped up in the sleeping bag. His thoughts and memories were all jumbled together and he had no idea where he was or what had happened. The last thing he remembered was Tony climbing into the sleeping bag with him after they had tried to make it down the tower. After that, everything was just a blur. 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter lurched upright, the sleeping bag sliding off his chest to bunch at his hips. The cold air hit him hard and he shivered again. His eyes bounced around the ground nearby and he spotted his clothes and shoes just in his reach besides the smoldering embers of a dead fire. Quickly, he dressed and grabbed his boots, yanking them on without caring to lace them up. He slid his jacket on as he scrambled to his feet, having to pause for a second as everything seemed to tilt and shift around him.

Once he had regained his balance, Peter turned slowly, trying to focus and find Tony. His eyes lighted on the figure slumped against the stone at the back of the outcropping, Tony’s head dropped to his chest.

“Mr. Stark…” Peter's voice cracked as he hurried forward and dropped to the ground in front of the man. He reached out to shake Tony's shoulder, trying to wake him up. Tony remained motionless, sliding to the side as he was knocked off balance. Peter caught him before he hit the ground and carefully lowered him the rest of the way. 

Tony wasn't shivering at all and Peter knew that was really bad. If someone was so cold they stopped shivering, they were really bad off. “Mr. Stark, please wake up,” he begged, shaking the man's shoulders again in an attempt to rouse him. Tony's eyes remained closed and his body still.

“Mr. Stark, I don't know what to do, please wake up!” Peter could feel himself starting to panic and he dragged in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Ok. I can do this. What would Mr. Stark do….” 

Sitting back on his heels, Peter tried to make a plan. He knew they had to get out of there, but he didn't know where 'here’ was. He knew something horrible must have happened for Tony not to have instantly called for help.

Karen.

Peter reached for the watch still on his wrist and pressed the small button on the side. “Karen, call the Avengers.” 

The watch screen glowed red for a moment before blacking out again, signaling that Karen was unavailable at the moment. That must have been why Tony hadn't called for help. If Karen was down, that meant their cells phones were down for sure and there was no other way they could get off the mountain. Except to climb down.

Peter realized the enormous task before him and slowly dropped his hands to his sides, looking around him at the dead fire and the empty sleeping bag. First things first, he had to get Tony warmed up again, or at least shivering again.

Clambering to his feet, Peter grabbed the unconscious man's wrists and braced his feet, trying to drag him closer to the sleeping bag. For a moment, his muscles rebelled, straining hard against the weight before his spidey strength kicked in and he lurched back suddenly, almost falling flat on his back. His powers didn't seem to be at 100% and he knew he would have to be careful until they were. 

Once Tony was mostly in the sleeping bag, he pulled the man's shoes off and tucked them into the end of the bag along with the jacket that he maneuvered off him. He couldn't make it down the mountain carrying everything, so the backpack was going to have to stay.

The sleeping bag was zipped up and the drawstring around the man’s face pulled tight, cocooning him inside. Peter zipped up his own jacket and laced his boots, flipping up the hood to cover his head. “Alright, Mr. Stark,” he announced, reaching down to grasp the top of the sleeping bag tightly. “I’m going to get us to the bottom. Somehow…”

‘Somehow’ ended up being much harder than Peter originally thought it would be. It took him a few seconds to get the sleeping bag sled started, but once he had, going down hill was where he had the most trouble. Because his spidey-senses and strength weren’t 100% back yet, there were moments when he would suddenly lose strength in his arms and the heavy sleeping bag would almost yank him off his feet as gravity took over and tried to drag them both down the mountain side. 

Peter’s shouts of surprise echoed across the valleys as he struggled to keep a hold of Tony and regain his footing while sliding through the thick snow. This happened a few more times before they reached a relatively flat area and Peter had to pause for a moment, his energy spent on trying not to lose his mentor down the steep slopes. Carefully leaning the cocooned Tony against a sturdy tree, the boy plopped himself down in the snow to catch his breath. 

His watch suddenly glowed blue for a small moment and Peter sprang to his feet, pressing the button on the side, his heart pounding. “Karen! Are you back? Please say you are back. We need help. Mr. Stark is not doing so good...” For a moment the watch face glowed red and Peter’s heart sank. With a dejected sigh, he dropped his arm back to his side, ready to start back down the mountain.

“Peter, your request for help was sent to the Avengers and they are on their way.” The woman’s voice coming from his watch surprised him and seemed like music to his ears and Peter choked out of sob of relief. Tears welled in his eyes and he scurried over to Tony, dropping to his knees beside the man. His eyes were still closed and his face pale, but Peter vaguely noticed that he had begun shivering again.

“Mr. Stark, help is coming, please don’t die.” His voice cracked and he squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that were now clouding his vision. All of the exhaustion and exertion hit him right then and he dropped his head forward to rest against Tony’s shoulder. Even with his super healing, there were still times, few and far between, when he exhausted himself beyond what his body could handle and right now, he was too tired to go any farther.

“Just a little longer,” he breathed, his eyes remaining closed and his breathing slowing down. “Please hold on a little longer, Mr. Stark…” The sounds of the forest around him began to disappear and his ears honed in on a faint sound off in the distance. It took him a moment to realize it was the Avengers chopper, but once he did, his entire body relaxed and he let himself actually rest.

The next thing he knew, there were hands on his arms, pulling him up right. His eyes snapped open and he came face to face with Natasha’s worried expression. A relieved smile tugged up the corner of Peter’s mouth and his thankful laugh turned into heaving sobs. Natasha pulled the boy close to her chest and cupped the back of his neck, the warmth of her hands sending a shiver down his spine.

“Shh…. You’re okay now. We got you. And Tony will be okay too. You did the right thing bringing him this far down.” Her voice was gentle and soothing and Peter closed his eyes, dragging in deep breaths to calm himself. A voice behind him pulled his attention and he lifted his head, pulling slightly from Natasha’s embrace. Steve and Bruce were there too, along with three other medical personnel. They had already lifted Tony from his cocoon in the snow and onto the stretcher. 

Natasha’s hand on his back brought his attention forward as she guided him down the rest of the slope to toward the helicopter. His eyes stayed locked on Tony during the short flight back to the Avenger’s HQ and he refused to leave Tony’s side as they left the chopper and headed into the med bay. Natasha stayed with them while Steve and Bruce dealt with the doctors and the rest of the team, updating them on everything they knew. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The soft music in the background was the first thing Tony became aware of, and for a moment he panicked, unsure of where he was and why he was hearing music. The last thing he remembered was checking on Peter before passing out himself from exhaustion. 

_Peter._

His heart thumped hard in his chest and his eyes snapped open, his body too tired to sit him up. Slowly his eyes focused and the first thing they landed on was the small figure curled up in the chair right beside his bed. His legs were curled up under him and his arm was tucked under his head, making him look small in the chair. An enormous weight felt like it lifted off Tony’s chest and he let out a shuddering breath of relief.

Peter was safe. He was here. 

Tony’s boy was safe.


End file.
